Category: Nemo – Books On Trial

Have you thought of writing or already written memoirs? I think I’d enjoy reading them.
Your second story reminded me of the Confessions by St. Augustine,
in which he grieved over the death of his beloved friend.

Descartes might say this about your “This is the census” moment: “I lisp, therefore I exist”.
But how would you interpret the “parable”?

What caused you to stop ministering at the palliative care unit after ten years?

You wrote, “I am at the most aware of only one thought, that thought being that
something is thinking,”

Unless you argue that something can think without a thought, there are at least two thoughts here. First, the awareness that something is thinking. Second, if something is thinking, that something is thinking a thought. As you said, “consciousness of my consciousness”. There are two “consciousness”:

There is a thinker who is thinking a thought, and there is an observer who is thinking of the thinker. If the thinker and the observer are the same, the thought becomes an infinite recursion, like an image reflected in two parallel mirrors. This is partly why I said people who speculate this have way too much time, in fact, only eternity would suffice.

the world and everything in it is in the eye of the beholder

Where is the beholder himself, if everything is in his eye? Does the world exist when the beholder closes his eye?

To apply Plotinus’ theory of memory to Alzheimer, and answer your earlier question. The disease damaged the first component of memory, i.e., our memory storage facility, but it leaves the second and third components intact, where “we” are most active. People afflicted with Alzheimer are no less human than the rest, because they still have their thoughts, emotions, desires, judgment and will.

To use analogy, I’d liken living with Alzheimer to walking on the beach. Our memory is like the footprints we leave in the sand, which are constantly washed away by the waves, but the lack of footprints doesn’t prevent us from continue walking/living

Actually Plotinus posited a memory model that might be quite similar to yours if I understand you correctly. There are three components in this model, the object stored in our memory, our act of remembering as if retrieving an object from storage, and the activated/retrieved image of the object in our mind. To answer your friend’s retort, we are all three components combined, though most prominent in the second component.

You object to the idea of thoughts having their object existence outside our consciousness, but you agree that we’re aware of our thoughts at the same time as we’re aware of our own existence. Is that a fair representation of your position?

If so, thoughts have just as valid an existence in our consciousness as ourselves. Ergo, there are thoughts. 🙂

P.S. People who speculate on this stuff have way too much time on their hands

if I haven’t replied forthwith, Nemo, to your

comment, it is that I found myself with too

little time on my hands to do other things

that required my more immediate, in my

opinion, attention, though I believe time

spent speculating is never a waste of

“way too much time on [one’s} hands“,

where would Plato be, or Descartes, or

Russell, Nietzsche, Proust, yes, Proust,

my most revered lingerer, and the answer

to all my philosophical prayers, but that’s

another story I’m sure we’ll get to, if they

hadn’t dawdled around profundities

and who’s to say we’re not up to the

mark, and who could say we are, but

for conversations that test the waters,

like this one

so I, for one, will deliberate when I get

the chance, which, incidentally, is not a

lot of the time, despite objections that I

might be nevertheless still wasting it

and I return to the fray like a kid to a

very candy shop

thanks

let me point out that Plato would be

proud of us, would’ve been proud of

us, to whose time frame should we

here, do you think, refer, I think Plato

this time could take prominence, if

you’ll allow this playful speculative

divergence

this, our talk, is his Socrates discussing

with his Euthyphro, or his other acolytes,

ephebes, describing the Socratic Method,

Nemo, we’re carrying on the tradition,

which 2500 years later still vigorously

applies

Plato, incidentally, c. 428 BC – c. 347 BC

there are a few problems in your argument,

from my perspective, you say “you agree that

we’re aware of our thoughts at the same time as

we’re aware of our own existence”, but that’s an

extrapolation, I am at the most aware of only

one thought, that thought being that

something is thinking, no more, no less

but reason interjects, applies itself to

consciousness, and concludes that

something has just thought, the element

of time and memory enters the fray here,

but not yet explicitly, they are the

handmaidens of consciousness

if something is thinking, which by the very

act of thinking this I am doing, something

must be doing it, I’ve already conceived of

this consciousness as, for me, irrefutably

real, having had already an impression

of it

whatever other impression I might add to

this composite, however, is arbitrary and

therefore moot with respect to what might

actually philosophically be real

the world and everything in it is in the eye

of the beholder

think about it

thoughts are an extrapolation from all

that we can be sure we know, but all

of it is nothing more than a dream

see Shakespeare

“………………………..We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

The Latin “cogito ergo sum” is actually closer to the interpretation I had in mind at the beginning,”There are thoughts, therefore there is a thinker”. If you accept that as a valid argument, then you’re closer to accepting the existence of God. “There is creation, therefore there is a Creator”.

The Republic of Plato is not ruled by an autocrat, but by Reason and knowledge. Come to think of it, Plato should be hailed as the Father of Enlightenment. 🙂 I’ve written a post on the Republic too, if you like to discuss it further.

Plato’s theory of the nature of the universe in Timaeus encompasses both change and immutability, and Plotinus explains this in Ennead III.

“Cogito, ergo sum”, Nemo, I have to insist, is

not “There are thoughts“, as you argue, it is

“Cogito”,“I think”, “I grasp consciousness”,

“I perceive”, it is not an acknowledgment of

any more than its own consciousness, “there

are thoughts” is a further, and only peripheral,

application, thoughts themselves are entirely

speculative and without any firm basis but

conjecture this is a fundamental disagreement in our discussion which needs to be recognized and acknowledged, it doesn’t seem to have been as yet “There is creation” therefore, in my opinion, is presumptuous at best, though the proposition seems manifestly, even irrationally, obvious, which has nothing to do, nevertheless, with Descartes, and what we’re discussing should you wish to discuss more intuitive subjects, I’ll pass, cause faith, and oratory, have no basis in anything other than mereseduction, the Greeks called it rhetoric and sophistry reason, of the Greeks, and of our epoch, is still my essential arbiter, though my own personal mystical devotion is ardent and true it is however, my own personal mystical

Descartes did not prove the existence of “I”. To prove that something exists, you cannot presuppose its existence and say “something” does this or that. In other words, “I exist” is the condition that comes before “I think”, not after. If Descartes wanted to prove the existence of “I”, he made the mistake of circular logic, putting the cart before the horse.Even if we grant that the individual is conscious of the “I”. Does the “I” exist as a part, a mere concept, in his thoughts, just as other people exist as mere concepts of his thoughts, or is there an “I” beyond his consciousness? To borrow the imagery of Plotinus, does the Moon exist as part of the reflection in the water, or does it exist independently outside the water?

Plato’s theory encompasses both change and immutability. They are incomplete without the other, nay, they cannot exist without the other. This is proven by our own experience. We can observe changes only because we’re using something static as a reference

first of all, Nemo, thank you for this conversation, I’m finding this exercise very stimulating, not many have called me on my philosophical positions, not many, I suspect, having given these positions much thought in the first place, you are perhaps a kindred spirit, what a delight and as such I can only be, respectfully and humbly ever, forthright in a Socratic, as it were, contract this part of Plato, incidentally, is the only part I accept, his celebration of the Socratic Method, to put words later into the greater philosopher’s mouth, to me, is highly unethical, especially to spout with that authority such drivel you can tell I don’t like Plato the flurry of consciousness is the clue, in Descartes, the moment of realization, the inkling of perception, that allows us to know that something is behind that, producing that, without which there would be no actuality, that something is what we call “I” interestingly, “Cogito, ergo sum”, the Latin, often used, translation of the original French, “Je pense, donc je suis”, doesn’t show an “I” in its very grammar, which is an apt demonstration of the proposition we are discussing if there is conscioussness of something being

conscious, something must be being conscious,

that something Descartes called “moi”, we call

“me”, others call whatever they call it therefore I am

but I could not have done that without consciousness,

nebulous and indeterminate consciousness, but that’s

all we have, all we’ve ever had Plato tried to fashion an alternate, paternalistic, I might

add, conscience driven, later driven-by-Christian-fear,

reality, somewhere out there, that lasted for all of the

Middle, did I say Middle or Dark, Ages, a good thousand,

count them, thousand, years, conservatively even

speaking Nietzsche got rid of that, finally, but still all of nearly

five hundred years later

oof where does Plato “encompass[–] both change and

immutability“, “The Republic” makes short shrift of

that, how is this “proven by our own experience” I like “We can observe changes only because we’re

using something static as a reference“, where did

you get that, I’ll have to ponder it but “static” is my stumbling block, in a world I cannot see as in any way static, autocratic, unbending help read also OvidcheersRichard